Josh Garber

Artist's Bio

For the past 20 years I have been a sculptor working with all kinds of metals. The work is very labor intensive. In some pieces more than three thousand separate bars are individually welded together after which, they are ground and polished. My new body of work involves experimenting with bot materials such as bronze and stainless steel(1/8 and 3/16 inch) bars, and an intricate machined aluminum pipe procedure.

My public work is comprised of several different materials, iron telephone poles, aluminum bars, and stainless steel rods. Over the past 10 years five Public art projects have been completed.

In 2007 I installed a double sculpture titled "Hope and Renewal." Based on a flower-like form it was meant to encourage the community of Albany Park with a sense of optimism about the future. This community is an area in Chicago that is largely made up of refugees and newly landed immigrants. For this project I consulted with several community members about their aspirations for the artwork at the their station.

This project also allowed me to develop a functional quality to my public work. The organic shapes have flat or slightly rounded platforms permitting them to double as seating. My work is tactile in nature, which encourages public interaction through touching and feeling as well as looking. The thousands of aluminum bars create a maze of detail that slow the viewer’s eye so that the sculpture can provide a contemplative retreat. The aluminum bars are powder coated which makes them weatherproof and very safe to touch.

"Lucent," is a thirty-foot tall outdoor sculpture designed to be a welcoming beacon for the Phoenix’s new light rail transit system. The sculpture is created from approximately 40,000 aluminum bars with inside fiber optic lighting. When illuminated at night the piece is meant to be a reflecting jewels that is both inspiring and meditative. This aluminum bar sculpture is illuminated with fiber optic lighting programmed to change color in intervals.